


A Study in Starlight

by DratTheRat



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Genre: "adult content" is the vaguest tag ever - I feel like the MPAA, Adult Content, Angst, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 13:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18499801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DratTheRat/pseuds/DratTheRat
Summary: It was not Cuthbert’s fault that he was beautiful.  Surely, it was only the absence of more pleasant company that led Roland’s sexually frustrated body to yearn for the prettiest thing nearby.





	A Study in Starlight

Roland jerked awake, sucking in frigid air. To his relief, his groin did not feel wet and sticky, but his hard cock surged angrily against the confines of his trousers in spite of the chill. Not far away, Alain snored fitfully; Roland could see his breath. He shivered, and his erection, thankfully, departed. The sweat from his dream was real, but the rest had been a terrifying fantasy. He rolled onto his back. Above him, Old Mother shepherded a million starts around the sky; the moon had set, and the cloudless night was winter-cold. There were too many enemies about to light a fire here. He exhaled slowly and watched his steamy breath float up towards the stars and dissipate, wishing for a real cloud to hold the warmth of daylight to the Earth.

Cuthbert leaned over him and grinned, hands braced upon his thighs, the whites of his eyes and exposed teeth apparent in the darkness. Roland blinked up at him. Judging from the moonless sky and the ticking of the clock inside his head, it was not yet time for Bert to wake him for his watch. He shivered again.

Cuthbert frowned. He swung a booted foot over Roland's legs to straddle him and extended his hand. Roland clasped it and allowed Cuthbert to haul him to his feet. The hand was surprisingly warm; he must have had it tucked in close to his body during the hours of his watch.

Eager to warm his bones with movement, Roland followed Cuthbert away from their sleeping companions and up the slope behind their camp. Sure-footed even in the dark, they switchbacked sharply up the mountainside until they reached the ledge above the alcove they had chosen for their nightly rest. There was a reason they had not camped here although the watchman's view would have been better: this spot afforded no protection from the chilly wind.

Roland wrapped himself more tightly in his coat and softly said, “I take it you did not bring me up here to warm me up.”

Cuthbert's grin was back. He tugged his own coat snug around his bony shoulders. “The price of privacy, my friend. And who's to say I didn't?” He sat down on a flattish rock and drew a flask from his coat pocket. After taking a long swallow for himself, he offered it to Roland.

Roland chuckled and received the flask. It was Alain’s, he knew, and rarely strayed far from the pocket of its owner. He sat down beside Cuthbert, close enough to feel his body heat but not as close as he might normally have sat on a cold night. He was still bothered by his dream. The moonshine in the flask did not taste very nice, but it burned a trail down his throat and settled, warm and pleasant, in his belly. He felt himself flush. When he looked back at Cuthbert, his friend was rolling a cigarette, a little smile curling at the edge of his thin lips. Cuthbert often mooched a suck to two from someone else's cig, but he smoked in earnest only on occasion and did not carry his own tobacco. This, too, then, was Alain’s; Roland recognized his pouch.

“Would Alain approve of you making free with his person while he is asleep?” Alain was a sound sleeper, and Roland was certain that these items had come from his pockets, not his purse.

Cuthbert’s smile twitched a little wider on one side. “I've more or less his license to make free with his person at any time I wish . . . although, I reckon you are on to something: he would rather be awake.” He stuck the cigarette between his lips and worked the blades of his own striker until it sparked and the tip lit. His cheeks hollowed seductively as he sucked the first pull of smoke into his mouth.

Roland had some reverence for the riddling tradition of Gilead and remembered many favorites from the competitions he had witnessed as a child, but he did not share Cuthbert’s interest in subtle wordplay. Had it not been for his dream, he would have missed Cuthbert’s innuendo, in spite of the cigarette and the half-private, crooked smile Cuthbert typically wore when he made comments for his own amusement. Roland knew he lacked the curiosity and the imagination to puzzle out the source of Cuthbert’s private smiles, and Cuthbert knew it, too. As Roland watched, his friend withdrew the cigarette and puffed the smoke out into rings, punctuating the potential lewdness of what might have been a joke, maybe a veiled confession. When he ran out of smoke, the crooked smile came back, and he passed the cigarette to Roland and stared out across the black sea of the valley far below. The night was very dark.

Roland smoked. Beside him, Cuthbert’s profile was a study in starlight. The dim glow highlighted his nose, which had grown long without being large, and his cheekbones, which were far too prominent for a man so young. Roland did not need to see to know that there were deep hollows between his ribs, hollows the feast of Gilead could never fill again. And yet, he was still comely. Roland had been fooling himself if he had ever thought him otherwise. 

After a moment, Cuthbert shivered, and Roland passed him Alain’s flask. He took a long drink and continued to stare out into the darkness. “Will you tell me your dream?”

“I dreamed of Susan,” Roland said. A half-truth: Susan had been part of his dream, also.

Cuthbert nodded. “It is not often that your dreams affect you so.”

When Roland did not answer, Cuthbert filled the silence as he usually did. 

“You jarred awake and shivered in a sweat: a dismal end to what might have been a sweet dream. Was it sweet?” 

He was looking at Roland, now, and starlight glittered off his beautiful, dark eyes. Susan had been taken with them, too. It was not Cuthbert’s fault that he was beautiful. Surely, it was only the absence of more pleasant company that led Roland’s sexually frustrated body to yearn for the prettiest thing nearby. 

He thought of throwing his oldest, most cherished companion to the ground, clapping his hand over his mouth, and pounding roughly into him. 

“A sweet dream? No, I would not call it so.” 

Cuthbert nodded again. “It would not be fair for me to say I understand. I’ve never loved like that.” 

“How have you loved, then, Cuthbert?” The words spilled out of Roland’s mouth. They earned him a true smile.

“Why, my love is my ka-tet! And I have lain with women here and there. There is a sort of love in that; although, I know that it does not compare.”

“To our ka-tet, or me and Susan?”

“To both, of course. But there is love there all the same. I am not saving up my love to squander on one great, impossible romance.”

Roland laughed. “You had me fooled. I thought you were about to be romantic.”

Cuthbert grinned. “One romantic nature is enough for this ka-tet. I am a pragmatist, but that is not to say I do not cherish love wherever I may find it.”

“A very practical approach,” Roland agreed, ignoring Cuthbert’s first comment. Already, they had tiptoed far too close to Roland’s private thoughts.

“Shall I tell you my first?” Cuthbert offered.

“If it pleases you.”

“Which first would you hear?” Cuthbert mused, and Roland blushed. Fortunately, it was too dark to see color. Cuthbert continued on without expecting Roland’s answer. “Her name was Arlene. She had eyes as dark as mine and hair as dark as yours and skin darker than either. She said I was a pretty boy and when she had finished with me I would be a pretty man. ‘Thank God!’ said I. She laughed and taught me how to fuck her.” He hummed and leaned back on his elbows, plainly aroused by the memory. When his eyelids fluttered closed his lashes were as long as ever. 

Roland’s cigarette had dwindled to a nub. “Shall I leave you to your hand?”

Cuthbert opened his eyes and laughed. “I should have asked as much when you awoke before. I will not claim a courtesy that I did not extend to you.” He took another swig of Alain’s moonshine. When he spoke again his tone was much more measured. “Roland, the world has moved on. It had moved on from what it once was ere we were born, but it has moved on even since the days you lay with Susan and the day we knew that Gilead was lost. It has moved on, but you still are a part of it. And so am I. I am your man, you know?”

“I know.”

Cuthbert smiled sweetly. “Alright, then. I will leave you now unless you ask me not to. It is your watch.”

“Say true,” Roland agreed.

He did not ask Cuthbert to stay.

**Author's Note:**

> I googled "A Study in Starlight" before I committed to the title to make sure I wasn't referencing anything famous by accident. There is a poem by Irish poet Randal McDonnell by that name published in 1919. One excerpt I found especially fitting:
> 
> "You stood a statue, young and fair,  
> Wrapped in the silence of the clustering stars,  
> The dreamy moonlight playing in your hair  
> And all the glory of the skies  
> Paling before your eyes!"
> 
> The poem has a somewhat bittersweet ending, wherein the speaker asks, "Will all this fade . . ." 
> 
> McDonnell's book is in public domain in the US, but maybe not elsewhere. Depending on your location, you may be able to access it on [Hathi Trust](https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100615206).


End file.
